Probono landscape in Korea

Probono landscape in Korea

Jong-Chul Kim(Attorney at Law, APIL)

1.

I would like to start with the definition of Probono, as lawyers always love to do. Probono is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase “pro bono public”. And it means “for the public good”. But when we say probono, we find that two other factors have been added to the literal meaning of probono. The first one is free of charge or low charge factor. And the other is expertise factor. So my understanding of probono for lawyers is lawyer’s activities using his or her expertise for direct public interest with free of charge or low charge. I know my version of the definition for probono might be controversial but considering the complexity of defining the term, I hope to start a discussion with this rough definition.

In this presentation, I would like to talk about 3 topics featured in Korea. First, the emergence of full time public interest lawyers. Secondy the rising trend of probono activities of major Lawfirms. Lastly, human rights advocacy of Korean Bar Association.

2.

Gonggam was the first non-profit full time public interest lawyers’ organization. It started its public interest lawyering with legally assisting the various NGOs in Korean society. Gonggam, which has 8 full-time lawyers now, has been working on almost every issue of human rights. To mention some of the main areas on which it has expertise: rights of women, the disabled, migrants including refugees, workers, sexual minorities and issues of social welfare and poverty. And since its establishment at the end of 2003, Gonggam has been inspiring many who strive to be public interest lawyers. And it has played an exemplary role model for other similar public interest organizations.

Actually, in the beginning of 2011, another public interest lawyers’ organization called Advocates for Public Interest Law, also known as APIL, was established with support by Lawfirm Somyoung. It has been focusing on working for vulnerable migrants and foreigners, such as refugees, victims of human trafficking, migrant detainees and victims of human rights violations committed by Korean companies overseas. It is the first Korean public interest lawyers organization in which foreign licensed lawyers are working as full time attorneys.

And we had Korean Lawyers for Public Interest and Human Rights or Heemangbub in the beginning of 2012. It is composed of 6 lawyers and has empathized on legal assistance to civil society groups, business and human rights, rights of the disabled and the rights of sexual minorities. Even though it has a short history, it has been well known for its successful stories for advocating the disabled and sexual minorities and holding annual human rights workshop for lawschool students.

One of the common features these three organizations have is that as their financial recourse, they very much rely on individual donors who usually donate small amounts of money but on a regular basis.

With regard to fundraising from individuals for public interest lawyers, in 2011, a new phenomenon appeared. Many of students at Judicial Research and Training Center participated in making a fund to support 3 potential public interest lawyers who were in the same graduating class for at least 3 years. Among these 3 beneficiaries, two lawyers joined in Heemangbub, while the other one set up an independent public interest law office called Public Bubryul Samuso in which apart from working on various human rights issues, he is also managing and distributing the fund. This kind of initiative of making a fund for public interest lawyers at the level of Judicial Research and Training Center continued in 2012, and this time, they supported two lawyers from the same graduating class. The lawyers started working as public interest lawyers starting in 2013. But what is special this time, is that rather than establishing their own organization or participating in existing public interest organizations, these lawyers are working for a specific NGO like its employees.

Another common aspect these organizations and individual lawyers have is that they not only work on individual cases through litigation but also have a lot of interest in reforming legislation and policy by closely working with NGOs, constitutional litigation, and lobbying with members of parliaments.

Under the current Act of Lawyer, a nonprofit public interest organization cannot be a law firm as a legal person, which means that there is no way for the organizations to do legal actions as a person. But the revised bill of Act of Lawyer provides that there is a new kind of a law firm as a legal person dedicated to public interest law. If the bill is enacted, it will be easy for the organization to be legal person and do legal action with its own name.

3.

While Gonggam is a pioneer in the area of full time public interest lawyering, we also have BKL or Dongcheon foundation in lawfirm’s probono practices. BKL, one of the biggest lawfirm, founded Doncheon foundation in 2009 and hired a full time probono lawyer. This was the first case in lawfirm history in Korea in which a full time probono lawyer was hired by a major lawfirm. Now BKL has 4 full time probono lawyers and is focusing on working for refugees, migrant workers, the disabled and social enterprises. Due to existences of full time probono lawyers, probono activities inside lawfirm BKL were well coordinated and bore a lot of tangible fruits in such a short period of time. BKL has been displaying the best practice of probono work of lawfirms.

It will take a long time for other lawfirm to catch up with BKL in terms of probono. But it has encouraged and pressured other lawfirms to follow the example of BKL. Recently, some lawfirms started appointing lawyers in charge of promoting probono works inside of their lawfirms. While BKL is the sole lawfirm with full time probono lawyers, some lawfirms annually publish probono reports, and one of the biggest lawfirms even established a public interest foundation. But strictly speaking, only a few activities covered in the reports and carried out by the foundation can really be called probono. Because most of the activities have nothing to do with using lawyers’ expertise; instead, they constitute social contribution rather than probono.

I would like to mention two things before going to the next topic. The Article 1 of the Act of Lawyer stipulates that mission of lawyers is to advocate for basic human rights and to realize social justice. The Article 27 provides that Lawyers shall conduct probono activities with a certain amount of time a year. And Korean Bar Association’s Regulation relating to the Probono specifies the scope and application of probono activities. But under the regulation, the scope of what can be considered probono is so wide and vague that the regulation is not likely to promote probono activities in a sincere manner. But it is not desirable to forcefully implement the duty of probono rather than voluntary initiatives of Lawyers.

In this context, Korean Bar Association recently founded the so-called Lawfirm Probono Award to encourage probono activites of lawfirms. And it published the probono index to be used by lawfirms to self-diagnosis their probono activities, used by the Korean Bar Association to choose probono award winning lawfirm.

Originally, the probono index was suggested to have a set of CSR index for lawfirms such as the employment rate of minorities, publication of annual sustainable report, etc.. But putting the CSR index to the criteria on probono was strongly opposed by many that it ended up being annexed on the last page.

4.

And Legal Aid Foundation of Korean Bar Association also has played a role in promoting probono work of lawyers with financial support when lawyers’ representing the economically marginalized who without the aid of Korea Legal Aid Foundation.

Human Rights department of Korean Bar Associaiton has varous kinds of committees and subcommittees in which Lawyers has taken part as a probono base. 

If I introduced some of achievement of these committees, Human Rights Committees has been publishing annual human rights report, the committee on women and child set up legal assistance system for child and disabled victims of sexual asssult with the ministry of justice, subcommittee on north korean human rights has produced biannual report on human rights situation in North Korea, committee on International Human Rights submitted human rights situation analysis report for Uinversal Periodic Review on Korea and held an annual conference for reviewing implementation of human rights recommendation by UN.

5.

Before closing my presentation, I would like to briefly talk about how well the new lawschool system for which we are following Japanese precedent is functioning in terms of producing public interest lawyers. Personally I found many of lawschool students saying they decided to go to lawschool to work for public interest. I think this is one of the good things of the new lawschool system. But what is sad is that working as a public interest lawyer is not a realistic option upon graduation, since they have a lot of loan to pay back for lawschool tuition. It is said that Gonggam just start making a fund for potential public interest lawyers. I hope Korean Bar Association and Lawfirms participate in this kind of initiative for the better landscape of probono in Korea.

*This article was proofread by Lee Hong-Sik Intern at APIL and was scheduled to be presented by Jong-Chul at the annual meeting of Inter-Pacific Bar Association, IPBA in 2013.